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In its 2013 Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders listed India 140th out of 179 countries surveyed. That’s the same league as Russia, ranked 148th for its draconian restrictions on free speech, including the “gay propaganda” law being highlighted by human rights groups during the Sochi Olympics.

India’s low ranking was a surprise. It is the world’s largest and most rambunctious democracy, with a free press and a thriving literary scene, in English as well as several regional languages. The famous Jaipur Literary Festival (Jan. 17-21 this year) has within eight years become the biggest in Asia-Pacific. Print and electronic media are enjoying record circulation and ratings.

They are arrested, harassed and sued by governments, businesses and vigilante groups that want to silence what they don’t want to hear and ban what they don’t want to see. Media face restrictions in reporting sectarian riots or from the disputed territory of Kashmir and the insurgency-plagued northeast. Internet censorship is on the rise. Websites are being shut down, blogs blocked and Facebook pages removed.

The Indian constitution guarantees free speech. But, like Canada and many European nations, it also allows “reasonable restrictions” to maintain “public order” and interreligious peace. The latter is a priority for both the federal and state governments, given the tinderbox nature of Hindu-Muslim relations against the horrific history of one million Hindus and Muslims killed during the 1947 bifurcation of the nation into India and Pakistan.

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India was the first country to ban Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses in 1988, for portraying the Prophet Muhammad’s wives as prostitutes. That ban still draws sharp reactions, pro and con. While much of the literati sides with him, governments generally don’t. And public opinion is deeply divided. My mere mention of him at a dinner party in Delhi the other day evinced a sharp response from Mani Shankar Aiyar, a former federal cabinet minister, now a member of the upper house of parliament and as strong a liberal secularist Hindu as you are likely to find in India:

“Rushdie, that sod — he deliberately insulted and provoked Muslims but in the guise of literature. To us, keeping the peace in our complex, pluralistic society is more important than his preening about free speech.”

Rushdie — who was born in India, migrated first to Pakistan, then England and later the U.S. — had to stay away from the 2012 Jaipur festival because of threats on his life. In solidarity, four writers read excerpts from Satanic Verses, only to be disowned by festival organizers, who, in turn, were lampooned forcaving in too easily.

Co-organizer William Dalrymple, a British author (The White Mughals) who lives in India, said he had little choice, faced as he was with “a scary situation, since more than 100 Muslim activists had made their way inside the venue.”

Rushdie was also barred from entering Kolkata, with the state government there citing the potential for public disorder. Aiyar defended that travel ban: “Everyone in a democracy has the right to freedom of expression and everyone also has the right to be outraged. Such outrage, when shared by a large number of people, has to be taken into account by a democracy. To pre-empt protest that could turn violent is the duty of government.

“To be absolutist about the freedom to offend is absolutism, not democracy.”

He makes another argument — that while India’s democracy “is increasingly becoming more inclusive, the social system is growing increasingly exclusive. So people feel that if they create a fuss, the chances of their views being able to prevail are greater than they might be otherwise.

“This causes problems to freedom of expression. But we have to adjust.”

So the debate rages on as to where to draw the line between free speech and provocative/hate speech that may light a fuse.

Delhi-based author Nilanjana Roy sums it well:

“The conversations on free speech in India tend to move in predictable directions: the common belief that free speech is a western idea, which is easily rebutted considering India’s long tradition of dissent and debate. Or that India needs to be careful, given the very real possibility of violence/riots, which is not so easily combated because it is so true.”

That’s only part of the story, as shown by Wednesday’s announcement by Penguin India that it has withdrawn American academic Wendy Doniger’s book, The Hindus: an Alternative History, and will pulp all the remaining copies.

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